


birdsong

by pistolgrip



Series: heavenbound, together [6]
Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 07:27:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20354647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistolgrip/pseuds/pistolgrip
Summary: It's rare that Quatre is this straightforward about seeking favours from her.





	birdsong

**Author's Note:**

> for ame, who wanted me to destroy a friend of theirs in 2000 words with nio & quatre friendship!  
hope it worked :dokkan:

The strict, composed air that Quatre maintains once frightened Nio before she learnt to reconcile it with the softer notes he kept hidden underneath. His compassion is the foundation beneath the oft-sharp lines of his shield, but he cannot hide it from Nio, who is attuned to listening to people's hearts.

She wonders why it is he comes to mind while she practices in an empty room at the base, hearing his notes crescendo, until the door opens with a sforzando.

Quatre's sudden appearance arrests her fingers over the strings. He's trying to look alert and failing; his head is held high with careful confidence, but tension lines his every move, and the bags underneath his eyes accent his desperation. "Nio, I need your help," he says, wasting no time.

The admission of needing help drains his energy to look awake. It's rare that he asks her outright for favours, so she takes a few beats to sync with his melody, breathing in the frayed edges of his song's tapestry. "What do you want me to do?"

"Stardust Town needs assistance."

"Doesn't Esser normally approach me for requests like these?"

She asks out of curiosity, but Quatre's voice grows sharp, puncturing through her questions to seek answers. "She's on a mission."

Underneath the irritation, she reassures herself with the depth of kindness she knows to find. Peering into his and Esser's melodies reveals a cantata performed with the children of Stardust Town; their lives are so connected that she can sense discord reflected within his own melody from other members of the choir. "What do you need from me?"

He extinguishes his shortened fuse with a deep breath. "A sickness is passing through Stardust Town. We have a cure, but symptoms persist in younger children. They wake up crying in the middle of the night. I need you to teach me a lullaby before I return tonight."

Although she's never heard Quatre sing, she doubts that his voice would be too dissimilar from Esser's, who has approached her with similar requests and has a habit of humming to herself around the base. She has no concerns about his technical ability. "Any lullaby?"

"If it's easy to sing."

"Most lullabies are." Still unsure about what he's looking for, with her harp in hand, she plays the most potent lullaby she has.

She is confident about her control over her magic. However, she's trained to make Ninanana potent, reliable for difficult battles. She looks up to find Quatre's eyes drooping, even while sterilizing her intent. Alarmed, she lets her harp float to the side when his lips part to let out a soft snore, his knees buckling.

She rushes forward to hold him up, but strains with his weight. "Quatre, please wake up," she pleads, shaking with exertion. "I'm not strong enough for this."

At a loss, she smacks him on the face, careful not to put force behind it. He jolts awake like he's been drenched with cold water, and she stumbles onto him with the loss of his weight to support. "I may have started too strong," she says, as way of apology.

"Please don't do that again," Quatre says, voice clouded with her sleep enchantment. His ears twitch, he squints, and he tries to stifle the urge to stretch (but fails). "I need the _children_ to fall asleep, not me. Without magic is fine."

"If we're in a hurry, I'll accompany you to Stardust Town and teach you the song on the way there. It's been a while since I've visited to play for them."

"That would be appreciated," Quatre says, his disciplined expression unable to restrain the undercurrents of gratitude. 

* * *

The natural, soothing cadence of Nio's voice obscured the powers it held.

She was inclined towards music from a young age, feeling as deep a connection with her instruments as she did, unwillingly, with those around her. Her passion was lauded, even when her comments about hearing heart's melodies were treated as child's whimsy.

Child's whimsy turned to complications when she was old enough to understand deception. To relieve the discordant songs from her mind, she would parrot the songs she heard, but it would only amplify the observers' negative emotions. Abandoning music was not an option, but inundated by her lack of control over the powers that she _knew_ she possessed, she would escape with her harp to the town at the bottom of the hill to play anything that would drown the anguish that possessed her. 

She learnt her limits by playing phrases from those that passed by, without fear that her song would ensnare them in emotional turmoil. Although direct contact with people overwhelmed her, she found solace in existing among others as an anomaly, playing her songs without attachment. 

One of the songs that remains with her came from a mother and child; hearing the purity of his of melody, the child looked at her with laughter bubbling up from his chest. She penned her first song that night with the feeling of that pair in her heart, a composition to soothe both herself and others.

After Ninanana, this is the first song she thinks she could teach to Quatre.

On the ship to Stardust Town, Nio foregoes her harp as she teaches him the melody before the words, and the notes of hopelessness in his own composition fade as he repeats. She teaches him only a song, not a spell, but he treats it as if it carried enchantment.

* * *

The sun is almost below the horizon when they arrive, members of Stardust Town emerging to greet them. She finds it easy to separate their uniting chord of stress from the clear spring of their base tones; the more she visits Stardust Town, the better she recognizes their leitmotifs.

"Don't overwhelm her. Miss Nio is here for a favour," Quatre starts before the children can embrace her. She appreciates the gesture. Spending hours with Quatre taught her how to filter the stressed tones, but here, the burden of the illness crescendos into cacophony, and the most innocent children's melodies struggle to breach water.

One of them asks, "Are you gonna play a concert for us again, Miss Nio?"

"Not a concert," she corrects. "But I've brought my music."

Concern duets with optimism as they take her and Quatre by the hands and lead them to the quarantined medical centre of Stardust Town, makeshift lamps strung across shadowed alleyways flickering to life. 

Inside the clinic, Quatre switches from abrasive fluorescents to warm lamps. Even under faint light, Nio can see the children toss and turn in their sleep. Quatre's phrase of concern resonates with her own powerlessness during times of famine and illness. Seeking an anchor, she looks to him.

His soft smile contradicts his melody, but never once the foundation on which he is built upon. 

He smiles back at her and tilts his head towards a bookshelf. She follows him as he chooses a book that looks well-worn, and she lingers to look at the selection. There is little variety in the children's stories, and each of them are in the same condition as the one Quatre is holding. 

Next time she visits the Grandcypher, she'll ask Gran if he or his crew members have old books they can donate, even if Quatre doesn't seem to mind the lack of variety. 

As he collapses into an armchair that looks like it can barely hold _Nio's _weight, she asks, "May I read it?" She knows the placating power of her voice, melodious even in speech.

Quatre's ears perk up in surprise, and he offers her the seat. "Sure. That'll let me check up on everyone." In a low voice that won't wake up sleeping children, but is audible to those still awake, he announces, "Miss Nio came here to sing you a song with me, but she wants to read one of our favourite stories for us first, so let's listen."

The only responses are coughs and greetings from the children that recognize her. She nods and holds onto the book like a lifeline. Satisfied, Quatre tucks the children in, refills their water, and finds their medicine, each of the children responding to him easily. 

She looks to the red-haired girl on the cover, sporting a toothy grin that exudes enough confidence to take over the world. This book isn't just well-worn, it's well-_loved_, broken apart at the seams and scribbled over. This is less a book and more pages held together with a prayer—but prayers are worth as much as action for Stardust Town. Here, one always leads to the other through sheer will. 

The natural rubato of her narration is everyone's cue to join her performance; this story has been read so many times that everyone, awake and asleep, knows the words. As the room's conductor for story time, she imbues the story with the power from its familiarity. Her voice brings to life the music box winding, the melody of the ivory flute, the draft from the attic's ladder door creaking open.

When she closes the book and looks up in a daze, the magic lingers like a wind chime in the breeze. The night outside looks darker than when she started. "I... lost track of time."

"Good stories can't be rushed. That was better than I could have done—right?" Quatre asks to the child he's tucking in, who nods and giggles. He looks mock-offended. "You're not supposed to agree! But I've read that hundreds of times, and never as vivid as that."

He moves to another child who's wrestled free from her blanket, but the second Quatre touches her, she begins crying. 

Nio startles; she sensed the tremolo within her song, but it had been dulled by the story. Quatre picks her up and holding her against his chest. "Estelle, you're having the hardest time of all, aren't you?"

Estelle's crying starts a chain reaction in other children, and the noise makes Nio's skin crawl. Since their discomfort stems mostly from physical ailments rather than psychological suffering, one of her only options is to put the sufferers to sleep and ferry them to the next day.

She puts the book aside. "Quatre. Would you like to try the new song?"

"That would be for the best. It's bedtime," he says, turning from speaking to her to addressing the room, "and I learnt a lullaby with Miss Nio to help you all sleep." He sits on Estelle's bed while holding her, leaning back against the pillow, and Nio moves to sit by the dissonant pair.

She summons her harp. The first verse of the lullaby has instrumental accompaniment, but she refrained from informing Quatre, fearing that he would fall asleep during rehearsal. But there is a non-magical power in a voice that can carry a tune—and even a voice that can't, but is full of sincerity.

Quatre can both carry a tune and does so in earnest. He sings the first verse alone, a capella. His tired voice misses notes, but a smile appears on his face as Estelle reaches for him through her crying. 

When the second verse begins, Nio plucks at the strings. Estelle's hiccups fade into coughs before her breathing slows into the pattern of sleep. The rest of the room, whether conscious or not, quiets to listen to their duet.

With the third verse, she sings the accompanying harmony. It's impossible to separate her desire to see the children sleep well from that of Quatre's and of the children themselves. Rather than restraining it this time, she allows the full reach of her power to lace each note.

She embraces the melody when Quatre drifts off, his head sinking against the pillow while holding Estelle. He needs rest as much as the children in this room, and she refrains from waking him as the room's ensemble diminuendos to the flowing of a gentle creek from the turbulent waves from the sickness crashing into them. 

Nio is content to let others lead while she accompanies. But for one night, and however long they may need her, she can keep watch and give Stardust Town peace of mind.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/discoprince)


End file.
